Beijing and Xian China

We got into Beijing on Monday evening of this past week and immediately realized that China was very different from Japan. 1.3 billion people and they all seem to be right in front of us. The culture, although not rude, is not as friendly/polite as we had just experienced in Japan (no offense to any of our Chinese bretheren) and our lack of mandarin has proved to be quite a barrier. From the public bus en route to our youth hostile, we got off at the wrong stop, flagged down a taxi and luckily managed our way (almost through sign language) to get dropped off within walking distance of our place. We spent the night in our first dorm room (oh how we were spoiled in Tokyo with the Nagashimas) and found that it is not as inexpensive as we had hoped. Beds are anywhere between 60 to 80 Yuan per person in the dorms and our first Room in Xian cost us 170 Yuan (8 Yuan to the dollar). The food however has been very good and very much the opposite from Tokyo. Our breakfast this morning of tea, omelets, seafood fried rice and toast cost us only 35 Yuan.

We spent 3 days in Beijing and visited the Forbidden City and of course the Great Wall of China. We hiked a section which, because of it's location, is not frequented by many tourists. So we basically had that section of the wall to ourselves. It was only a 10K wall but it took nearly 5 hours as the wall was very steep in sections. It was truly 'GREAT'! We rented bikes one day and cruised the streets with the locals. Again, with 1.3 billion people in front of you, things felt hairy! We left for Xian on an overnight sleeper where we had tight accommodations on the top bunk. Got to Xian the next morning at 7 AM to quickly jump on a tour bus for a visit to the Army of Terracotta Warriors. Very impressive. We're off on another overnight sleeper (22 hours) to visit Chengdu. Until next time.

FMP

Have to run but here are 3 pics of the Forbidden City.